Comic-book superheroes — and more recently their movie incarnations — have always been about superlatives. Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Watchmen’s additions to the list include: Bluer! Naked-er! More morally ambiguous! And crazier! The masked avengers in this graphic-novel-turned-movie have no end of psychological ills. For them, hang-ups are much more than what they do with their capes at the end of the day.

The film was created by a number of Man men. Writer David Hayter wrote the screenplay for X-Men; co-writer Alex Tse adapted Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man for release next year; and director Zack Snyder made 300, which caused many viewers to say, “Man, I have never seen such a violent movie!” They may wish to reprise that statement by the end of this film.

The source material is a 12-issue comic-book series written by Alan Moore in 1986. Snyder has kept the original setting, which means the movie takes place in an alternate-history 1985, one in which Watergate never happened, Nixon is into his fifth term as president and the United States has won a decisive victory in Vietnam. Presumably, this means Francis Ford Coppola never made Apocalypse Now, although there’s a nice homage featuring Ride of the Valkyries.

Some benefits of shooting in this period: People are not forever yakking into cellphones; the one scene featuring a desktop computer uses those adorable 3 ½-inch floppy discs; and actors who look like younger versions of Pat Buchanan, Lee Iacocca, Ted Koppel, Henry Kissinger, David Bowie and Fidel Castro get some much-needed screen time (though not all in the same scene).

The film opens with a series of tableaux bringing us up to speed on the history of the world from the end of the Second World War to the “present.” This includes showing the rise and fall of many masked adventurers and their exploits, such as providing a second gunman at the Kennedy assassination. (See what I mean about moral ambiguity?)

These images, bright and rich with information, unfold over Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ and are the most striking moments in the movie; nothing that follows ever quite rises to the same audio-visual level. The nearest is probably I’m Your Boogie Man by K.C. and the Sunshine Band, which provides the soundtrack to an urban riot. Incidents such as this caused the government to ban masked vigilantism in the ’70s, so most of the heroes at the start of Watchmen have retired, gone underground or are working for the government.

The first one we meet is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian (surely the most ironically named hero), whose brutal murder involves being hurled through the plate-glass window of his 30th-storey apartment. Out for revenge or at least a bit of dramatic monologue is Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children), whose mask is a constantly changing inkblot that occasionally resembles a flower vase or two faces (or maybe I’m just reading into it). He favours antiquated insults like “whoreson” and eschews articles both definite and indefinite.

Others in the pantheon include Patrick Wilson (also from Little Children) as Nite Owl II, who picked up his alter ego second-hand after the first Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie) decided to start going to bed earlier. Matthew Goode (Chasing Liberty) plays Adrian Veidt, self-proclaimed smartest man in the world, who models himself after Alexander the Great and Ramesses the Great, one great not being enough to describe him. Malin Akerman (27 Dresses) is Silk Spectre II, having inherited the title from her mother; her costume is notable for featuring the most prominent nipples since George Clooney played Batman.

Like Batman, these characters all share a decided lack of super powers; they are merely ordinary people who decided to combine fighting crime and textile design. Not so Dr. Manhattan, who came by his glowing blue full-frontal nakedness through an industrial accident that forced the defence department to remove its “237 days without a scientist irradiated” sign. He doesn’t show much emotion but is clearly waiting for someone to look at him askance: “What, you never seen a cerulean penis before?”

Manhattan is played by Billy Crudup (Almost Famous, Trust the Man) and is clearly the lynchpin in this Cold War world, the only being who can prevent — or possibly inflict — a global nuclear war, thanks to his ability to teleport objects, rearrange the structure of matter and see into the future. It’s enough to give regular human crime fighters an inferiority complex.

There’s been much hand-wringing

over whether viewers unfamiliar with the graphic novel will understand what the heck is going on, but this comic neophyte (presently halfway through the book) had no trouble following the film, which runs close to three hours and seems to be about 98% flashback. Rorschach stalks around moodily, reading from his diary — though why does he title each entry “Rorschach’s journal”? Isn’t it obvious after the first? — and trying to track down the party responsible for the death of The Comedian and an attempt on Veidt’s life.

Meanwhile, the romantically linked Manhattan and Silk Spectre II have split, with the glowing blue man taking up residence on the cold Red Planet, and Silk shacking up with Night Owl II and discovering that battling evil while wearing latex is a powerful aphrodisiac. (If they have a child they could call her Silken Owl, or Night Spectre III if it’s a boy.)

Snyder has done a good job of staying true to the source material. Some of the original novel’s panels are faithfully recreated on the screen, as is (like it or not) much of the ultra-violence. Quick supervillain quiz: If someone’s arms have been tied together and are blocking your way, do you a) go around them, b) cut off the rope or c) cut off the arms? No points for squeamishness.